The Puffer Forum

I do keep a five gallon snail tank, which is doing awesome. There is also a male and female cherry shrimp in there. The female had eggs hatch about 2 weeks ago and is berried up again. I bought the nano tank to transfer the shrimp to since the snail tank is so bare with only substrate. Unfortunately when my husband saw the nano his face lit up like a kid on Christmas day as he thought the tank was for him to start a SW tank...I lied and told him it was for him...I couldn't break his heart...lol! As far as other live food goes my SAP and DP's are now spoiled on live blackworms. This also really gives me a good excuse to drive to Aquatek because I love looking at their tanks and visiting their Mbu!

RTR-lol! I suppose the water in my F8 tank can be considered "desirable" by oldschool standards as the water is a pale yellow (sarcasm ) I'm having an issue with funky water color that water changes is not fixing...I'm not thrilled!

What issue with water color? maybe someone can help you Srkoe

hey Srkoe about your water- do you have any real wood in that tank? subtly leaching tannins could be harmlessly coloring your water.

and as far as the snail tank -as long as you have adequate filtration i'd leave the cherries in there, just add some easy plants like java moss and fern, watersprite, etc. (i also have cabomba, anubias, an aponogeton, and a marimo ball in mine http://www.plantgeek.net/plantguide.php) the snails and shrimp will both munch any dying/mushy plant leaves but mostly ignore the healthy ones. keep the temp at 80+ as you want these feeders to grow fast, not live many years as pets, and add something like a very small clay flower pot and/or some stacked broken pieces of a bigger one so your molting shrimp can hide somewhere for a day or 2. and let hubby make a nano reef and just keep your 5g going or upgrade to a 10g+ for your feeder inverts oh, and i'd add a handfull more of adult cherries in there so you have a bigger gene pool (try to get them from a different source than the first ones for this same reason).

i have found that ghost shrimp may eat ramshorn eggs before they can hatch, but my pond snails still hatch out like crazy and now i have 30+ cherry and at least 10 ghost shrimplets in there too. i feed hikari algae wafers, some random fish flakes, and the odd pinch of bloodworms and such when feeding le punk. i use 2 HOB filters on that tank but have wrapped both intakes with foam filter sleeves (these things http://www.petco.com/product/2791/Rite- ... agnum.aspx) sewn up to fit and filled with some matrix and crushed coral in the "bag". this prevents shrimplets getting sucked in just fine apparently.

I have wood in the tank, but I boiled it and only just now started having problems with the water color. I know brackish water can wreak havoc on wood, so I'm not sure if this is why I might be having the sudden problem. Where the tank is now it gets indirect sunlight through a large kitchen window (the blinds are always closed) but I think the light is just too much. I've recently Bern battling with hair algae. Next water change the tank is being relocated to the other side of the room. If that doesn't help I'm gonna remove the wood and go with some "fake" wood.

As far as the snail tank goes I might have to try that. It has such ugly black gravel in it I wish I had used sand it's impossible to salvage all my snails and remove the hideous gravel. It's and awkward shape and hard to deal with but I'll probably try to get it planted and looking better. Yeah, I need to just let my husband "have" the nano, but it's hard because I'm so stingy with my tanks...lol! :p

What are the parameters of the yellow water? Does it have an odor? Have you tried adding carbon to your filter?

Boiling wood will not necessarily remove all the tannins. I have boiled driftwood in the past and it still colors the water 2 years later.

my invert tank has blue gravel that i inherited with the empty tank from an old roommate, which i don't love either. but the good thing is that dark substrate will cause your cherries to color up much brighter as they try to "match" it, yet only have the red pigment in their genes (wild type have brownish as well).

if you really want to switch you can try to capture most of your snails. i drop my algae wafers in a very small glass jar that lives in the tank. when it is full of feeding snails and shrimplets i cover it (underwater) with the bottom of a plastic cup cut to fit and trap them. this is how i move them to le punk's tank for her dinner. you could use a similar method to lure a maximum amount of snails from your old gravel, stick them in a holding bucket (batch by batch), and then change substrates if you want.

i'm curious if moving your tank will help. i'm still thinking it's the wood. and more shrimp may eat some of that algae as well. good luck!

here are pics of my invert tank and the "feeding jar". you can see some shrimplets in there as well as some eating anything that sticks to the foam filter cover-bags......

The parameters have Bern great

Ammonia-0
Nitrite-0
Nitrate->20

No odor at all. I have noticed that the wood has become very soft lately. I think it's really starting to break down and needs to be removed.

Srkoe wrote:It was two different guys that I spoke to. The first guy, Bob told me that Brian uses this "TLC" product instead of cycling. Then later while speaking to Brian he told me that he, himself has used GSP's to cycle marine tanks with. If this "TLC" stuff is so great then why is he using fish to cycle with? Just an example of crappy people trying to sell me a crappy product!!!! I didn't fall for it of course...I'm gonna go ahead and be "behind with the times" and cycle with an ammonia source.

I have used TLC bacterial supplement. Yes it's just a bacterial supplement like Safe Start and the other but it's a saltwater bacterial supplement. Noting wrong with adding a bacterial supplement, been doing it for along time myself. But the best way to start cycling a marine tank is by uncured LR. It will jump start it and then add your cured LR and sand. The best and fastest way to fully cycle a marine tank.

I don't doubt that bottled bacteria may work, it was just he told me to dump the stuff in then add fish...that's the part that made me go Hmmmm...lol. I went to another LFS tonight for some more live rock and the owner was great! They don't have the best selection of fish, but she seemed really knowledgeable. She even gave me a free bottle of TLC, so I'm gonna use it. She had several puffers for sale in her store! I was shocked! The only place I have ever seen puffs locally was in Walmart. She has GSP's, a dogface, and a Fugu!!! I want the Fugo soooo bad, but I know I can't She is ordering me a SAP and I couldn't be more thrilled! Tito needs a buddy so bad! She also has a Gsp that she keeps in her store that is hers...and guess what? She's in a brackish tank!!! Sorry I'm all giddy but I've never met anyone locally that keeps puffers

That's great! How far away was it?

he told me to dump the stuff in then add fish

Actually, that's how that kind of bacteria should be used, otherwise--without the fish waste to feed the bacteria, it quickly dies off. That's if the bacteria is the right kind & alive. It also should be placed in the filter, not just tossed into the tank.

It's actually here in town but in a very "undesirable" area I try to stay away from. I went there years ago and the concentrated mostly on birds and it was filthy. It's under new ownership and has really cleaned up. Not the best, but it will do for some basic needs...still have to drive an hour for black worms she td me it might be a good idea to add a hermit crab so I may do that. I hate to put anything through a cycle of any kind so I don't think the bacteria thing will work for me. Looks like I'll just go through a good ole fishless cycle with some raw shrimp...blech! I did add the TLC, so I'll see what happens. While putting the new lr in tonight I did find a small bristle worm and one of the rocks has about 10-15 feather dusters (super tiny) will they die during the cycle?

If that TLC bacteria is any good, then the life on your rock will be OK. My guess though, is it is not live bacteria. Any bacteria in a bottle that claims continued dosing, can't be good. Once a tank is cycled & bacteria is established, there should be no good reason to constantly replenish.